Crackdown on nuns may irk liberals

Thursday

Apr 18, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Pope Francis' honeymoon with some liberal Catholics may be over.

Pope Francis' honeymoon with some liberal Catholics may be over.

The pope has backed the Vatican's doctrinal crackdown on a major group of American nuns that accused an umbrella group for U.S. female Catholic orders of promoting "radical feminism" and ignoring Rome's hard line on same-sex marriage and abortion.

Last year, the Vatican dispatched an archbishop to rewrite the statutes of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and set up a re-education program for nuns. The conference represents about 80 percent of the 57,000 U.S. nuns.

Monday, conference officials met with the head of the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and others to remind them that organizations such as theirs "are constituted by and remain under the direction of the Holy See," according to a Vatican statement.

Some might interpret that as "It's our church, not yours and we make the rules. All of them."

Conference officials released their own statement declaring "the conversation ... open and frank."